May 13, 2014

Time for National Conversation About Post-Gala Violence, Experts Say and so does Borowitz

NEW YORK (The Borowitz Report)—Experts are calling for a national conversation about post-gala violence, which many say is a growing epidemic among America’s wealthiest gala attendees.
Dr. Davis Logsdon, who, for the past decade, has been studying post-gala violence at the University of Minnesota, says that a national conversation about post-gala skirmishes is “long overdue.”
“For years, post-gala violence has been America’s dirty little secret,” he says. “The media haven’t covered it, and government has offered no solutions. That’s why this moment is such a valuable wake-up call.”port.com
Dr. Logsdon says that the key to preventing post-gala violence is “first understanding its root causes.”
“Galas are very stressful situations,” he says. “Attendees have spent thousands on gowns and spa treatments, and tens of thousands more on silent-auction items. All of that pressure has to go somewhere. More often than not, it erupts into violence.”
He credits the national media, especially TMZ, for finally shining a light on one of the nation’s biggest problems.
“As regrettable as this incident was, if it results in people talking seriously about post-gala violence, it will all have been worth it,” he says.


www.borowitzreport.com

May 13, 2014

I need to borrow - or be given to - an old TOUPEE

I am serious.
I'm getting ready to be part of the crew in www.48hourfilm.com
we're making a movie for the City of Greensboro.

The screen writer has informed me we need a toupee, the cheesier the better, and part of my job is to secure props and costumes.

Help?!
Anyone?
Goodwill won't do for this one.
pm me if you can help

May 10, 2014

Groundbreaking, must see TV is "Vice" = please read and maybe learn about it

I'm writing to thank the ones who bring it to me, because it does what others could do and don't.

Every time I see this show, which is a half hour divided into two stories of 15 min. ea.

(on HBO Fri. 11pm to 11:30, produced by Bill Maher, and phenomenally and courageously filmed and presented by Shane Smith and many others
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vice_%28TV_series%29)

I am slack-jawed, wide-eyed, sitting up with a straight spine, wishing all of America could/would see it, and am augmented and educated and wrung out emotionally.

There may be smidgeons of knowledge in me on some of these topics, and then the show hones in and gives me the dope. Or I sit up and pay attention to brand new stuff.
There are political and social issues explored in areas of the world we don't hear about / think about / or even know about. And every time the show is over my ignorance overwhelms me and that's why I am writing this.

I will sit and feel both cheated and sad. Because my eyes were pried open to be exposed to something real in the world that has previously not been presented to me. Every time my mind is called on to pay attention to happenings that are more than important.
That's the being cheated part.

The sad part of course is that there is - and I comment now on tonight's segment about Papua /New Guinea - so much political intrigue and subterfuge and cheating of natives going on, and without this show we would never know. Their objections to fracking and the destruction of their land for the sake of satiating the energy thirst of the world brings them nothing but dislocation and having their land savaged. The money as in the US of A, goes to the top.

What we don't know about our world is monumental - our focus as presented in our own TV (Bengazhi….this week, anyway)
is ridiculous. Tiny. It in no way benefits and elevates and evolves and educates the American people.

I feel a bit silly here to be maudlin in my emotion as I praise a TV show. It's more than deserved.
"Vice" recognizes that we the people can easily rise to being thought of as smart and that bringing us the things we need to know rounds us out as citizens of the World who know that we are all connected.

I'm augmented by the above mentioned folks for letting me glimpse the huge world I am a citizen of and I want to thank them.

May 10, 2014

Borowitz Poll:Millions of Americans Who Need Jobs Want Congress to Get to Bottom of Benghazi Thing

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Millions of unemployed Americans who have fruitlessly been looking for work for months are determined that Congress get to the bottom of what happened in Benghazi, a new poll indicates.
According to the survey, job-seeking Americans hope that Congress will eventually do something about job creation, but they are adamant that it hold new hearings about Benghazi first.
By a wide majority, respondents to the poll “strongly agreed” with the statement “I would really like to find a job, but not if it in any way distracts Congress from my No. 1 concern: finding out what really happened in Benghazi.”
In related findings, a survey of Americans found that taxpayers overwhelmingly consider Benghazi hearings to be the best use of taxpayer money, well ahead of schools, roads, and infant nutrition.
In the House of Representatives, Speaker John Boehner released the following statement: “I want to reassure the American people that, until we have completed our Benghazi investigations, there will be absolutely no action
on job creation, infrastructure, immigration, education, housing, or food.”


www.borowitzreport.com

May 9, 2014

Some things are simply funny. Here is one of them.

May 7, 2014

This cartoon gave me a jolt. Have we seen it? ....by Pat Bagley

May 6, 2014

A Thank You note of Substance.

This child has a better grip on reality than any serious Republicans I know personally or know about in general.
And as for me, it reminds me that it is never too late to have a happy childhood.
Found this on a friend's facebook page.



on to the awesome drawing

May 6, 2014

The day I didn't stand my ground

John Railey
Winston-Salem Journal
May 3, 2014



If John Railey had been carrying his shotgun that day, he might not have made it to his high-school graduation

After the two men knocked me in the river I treaded water, asking the one still standing there what they were going to do.
“My brother’s gone to the truck to get a gun and we’re going to kill you,” he said.
Somewhere in my fear I thought to myself: I picked a hell of a day to leave my shotgun at home.
As America continues to wrestle with questions over Florida’s stand-your-ground law and questions over gun violence in general, I often think of what happened to me that afternoon in April 1978 in my rural Virginia hometown when I was a junior in high school.
I had been getting ready to go fishing on the Nottoway River, leaving from a landing less than a half-mile from my house. I kept my canoe chained at the landing. I stood near the boat, digging some fishing worms.
A young woman barely older than me was leaning on an old pickup truck parked at the landing. She asked me what I was doing. Digging worms, I said. She made some other small talk. I was just trying to get going with the fishing.
I finished up, put the worms in a plastic container and headed for my canoe.

That’s when I saw the two men.
They’d just pulled their boat up. They walked toward me, each lugging heavy oars across their shoulders. They were shirtless, older than me and taller than me. I knew most folks who used that landing but I’d never seen these guys before. One of them said, You were talking to my girlfriend.
She just asked me about digging worms, I said. I’m just trying to go fishing.
The two men weren’t buying it. One of them pushed his long hair out of his eyes. He looked like he’d ingested something that had taken him to a mean and lonely place.
We talked in circles for another minute or so, with both men accusing me of trying to pick up the girl and me denying it.
Then the strange-eyed one just raised his big oar behind him and swung it hard toward me. I’m not real coordinated but he wasn’t real sober, so I somehow had time to reflexively cover my face with my forearms and ease the blow.

for all of it go to:

http://www.journalnow.com/opinion/columnists/john_railey/railey-the-day-i-didn-t-stand-my-ground/article_836c5164-d22a-11e3-867a-0017a43b2370.html

May 3, 2014

<<<<<P R E P A R E - The Spring contest is coming soon.>>>>>

Even though I did not place in the finals in the contest for "Winter" I accepted the challenge to be in charge of the contest for "Spring".

The Winner Mth44sc and I made a deal. If I take over for him, then some of his photographic skills will be transferred to me by osmosis.
What could possibly go wrong?

Here, to remind you, is his winning photograph

Winter Carolina


The Spring contest starts June 1.
I'm going to give you this heads up early since I have to be concise and tight with the scheduling due to some other commitments.

We will open for submissions on the 24th of May, but you can send me photos beforehand, I will hold them.
It will not be a hidden name contest.

We will start the contest on the 1st of June and the finals thereafter.

We should be done with it by about the 10th or so - which is in all probability the time the June regular month contest gets good and going.

Since this Spring is pretty late in showing itself, at least in my neck of the woods, it may not be too late to take time and go on a photo walk. But, as you know, it can also be a photo you already have in your files, all that matters is that you took it yourself.

I look forward to doing this with you, please do participate, I want to see your conception of re-birth.

May 2, 2014

Bill Maher interview on tonight's show: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar - rest of lineup follows here

HBO tonight 10 pm EST


The Interview:

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is an NBA legend who played center for the L.A. Lakers and the Milwaukee Bucks and holds the title of the NBA’s all-time leading scorer. In 2000, he coached the Clippers under owner Donald Sterling and recently wrote a Time Magazine piece on Sterling’s racial controversy.

Twitter: @kaj33

The Panel:

Monica Mehta is a financial expert,investor and author of The Entrepreneurial Instinct. Inaddition to her role as a managing principal at Seventh CapitalInvestment, Mehta is an ambassador for Operation Hope’s Project 5117, which seeks to “empower economic mobility byteaching five million at-risk kids financial literacy basics and providing onemillion middle and high school students entrepreneurship training.”

Twitter: @MonicaMehtaNYC

Walter Kirn is the author ofeight books and two e-books, including Upin the Air and Thumbsucker – bothof which have been made into films.His latest work, Blood Will Out, is about his “unsuspecting ten-year friendship with theimposter and murder who called himself ‘Clark Rockefeller.’”

Twitter: @WalterKirn

Lt.Gov. Gavin Newsom is the LieutenantGovernor of California. He chairs the California Commission on EconomicDevelopment and is the author of Citizenville:How to Take the Town Square Digital and Reinvent Government.

Twitter: @GavinNewsom



Mid-Show Guest:

Ziggy Marley joins the panel mid-show totalk about his latest album, Fly Rasta. Marley has also authored hisfirst children’s book,I Love You Too, and created Ziggy Marley Organics, a line of GMO-free food products.

Twitter:@ZiggyMarley